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the songs here and they range from the barrelhouse blues of ‘You Know’ to the jazzy title track and

the Fats Domino-style tongue-in-cheek ‘Papercut’. The slow blues ‘Too Good For Me’ features
electric piano for a change and the stop time ‘Have You Lost Your Mind’ has Ben on Hammond
organ and the electric piano is back on the uptown soul of ‘Some Other Time’.

Again the covers are a mixed bunch—Frank Frost’s ‘My Back Scratcher' is funky blues, with Ben on

organ and he's also on organ on Harold Burrage’s instrumental ‘The Buzzard’, while Bill Nettles’
‘Hadacol Bounce’ (also covered by Professor Longhair) is pure New Orleans and the album closes
with Floyd Dixon’s beautiful reflective blues ‘Time Brings About A Change’. I thought that this was
a really good record showcasing the outstanding talent of 21-year old Ben Levin, his piano playing
went from the raw barrelhouse style of Speckled Red, to the Chicago blues of Otis Spann and then
down to New Orleans and while you wouldn't say that he had a particularly distinctive voice, it
does fit perfectly into all the genres that he covers. Similarly the band don’t really feature as

individuals but they provide the rock solid platform for Ben to display his skills over, with Aron's
guitar playing being very subtle and well-judged and although the album is solid blues there is also
lots of variety here. Recommended.

Graham Harrison

Arne Skage—Procrastination Blues—Slide Productions

Arne Skage Jr who is known professionally just by Skage, is a
veteran of the blues / roots / Americana Scene in Norway as a
sideman from Mads Eriksen's heyday in the 1990s, to some 30
years as Norwegian blues champion Reidar Larsen's right hand

man. Aside from standard guitar work, Arne also plays slide
guitar, lapsteel, and Weissenborn, among instruemnts.

As a freelance musician, Arne Skage has participated in a number
of national releases as well as project-based stage presentations.

Arne is cited as appearing on seven albums with Reidar Larsen and as performing on dozens of
other artist’s album. This is the first collection solely under his own name although on some of the
literature the designation is Arne Skage and the Procrastinators.

The title track, ‘Procrastination Blues’ has a kind of Cajun/ JJ Cale feel to it and comes with a
fabulous set of slide fills by Arne. ‘King Of The Hill’ has a New Orlins’ second-line feel to it
complete with a driving tuba; it reminds me a bit of Dr John in his prime. Wonderful. ‘Nice and

Funkyfried’ (sic) is a rocker with some great lyrics and a fun arrangement —I can hear the Meters
in this one. ‘River Road’ is super rock-out instrumental with a kind of massed-guitars feel about it
and with some nice slide-with-pedal work by Arne and some driving B3 work too.

Blues music is truly a world music. It is simply wonderful that the magic of this genre can be caught

and enhanced by musicians as far apart as New Orleans and Stavanger. Arne, on this showing, is on
the edge of world wide recognition . Memo to Someone: When the scourge is done, bring him to the
UK.

Ian K. McKenzie